


Night Swimming

by thankyouturtle



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Her-Oes
Genre: Action/Adventure, Female Friendship, Gen, High School, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:24:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouturtle/pseuds/thankyouturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carol worries when Janet Van Dyne discovers her secret, but that's about the become the least of her problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Swimming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [midnightjuly (roadmarks)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roadmarks/gifts).



"This is the worst school camp I have ever been to."

Carol knew, without looking over the side of her bunk, that those slightly accented tones belonged to Namora Aquarius, who until recently had maintained a reputation as the coolest - and _coldest_ \- girl in school.

"It's the _only_ school camp you've ever been to."

And _that_ was Janet Van Dyne, from the upper bed against the cabin’s opposite wall. If Carol had managed to have her way, she would not be sharing a cabin with Janet. Or a camp at all. Or a _school_. It wasn't like she didn't like the other girl - she seemed nice enough, and she seemed to have kept Carol's secret and everything - but just knowing she knew made Carol nervous. Like, all the time.

"That does not make my statement incorrect."

"It kind of does. I mean, it makes it sound like you're comparing it to another, better camp."

"I do not need to eat more than one mouthful of dirt to know that it is not an experience I want to repeat."

"I think I _did_ eat a mouthful of dirt doing that confidence course."

Carol resisted the urge to look over the edge of her own bunk and see what Jennifer Walters, the fourth and final member of their cabin, was making of the conversation. Jennifer was friends with both of the other two, and was probably used to them. And really, Carol reminded herself, if _she'd_ ever managed to make friends with girls, she could have been sharing a cabin with _them_. It was just - well, she seemed to be better at being friends with guys. Even the other girl jocks, who were friendly enough, never actually seemed to get as far as asking her to go - uh, hang out at the mall, or whatever it was that girls were supposed to do. What _were_ girls supposed to do? God, no wonder she didn't have any girl friends.

"If you are not going to let me sleep, then I'm going for a swim." That was Namora again. Surprised, this time Carol _did_ look over the edge of the bunk. Namora had already got out of her narrow bed and was rummaging through her large backpack. Was she seriously going swimming at night?

"At night?" asked a sleepy voice from underneath her. "By yourself?" Clearly Jennifer didn't think it was a great plan either.

"I can handle myself in the water." Namora sounded amused, but as she looked across at Jennifer Carol thought she saw a flicker of something else in her face. 

"I know, but after..." As Jennifer's voice trailed off, Namora glanced up at Carol and, seeing that she was obviously listening to the conversation, narrowed her eyes. Carol jerked back and cringed. If they'd been guys, she could have just asked what they were talking about, or say that she felt like a swim too - instead, she was pretty sure she was just in the way.  

"Point taken. Do you wish to swim?"

" _I_ do," Janet called from the opposite bank. "Did I tell you about my new swimsuit?"

"Only ten, perhaps eleven times."

"Are you going to come, Carol?"

Carol sat straight up, narrowly missing hitting her head on the low ceiling. "Me?" she asked Janet, incredulously. 

"Or don't you like swimming?"

"Yes - I mean -"

"Cool! Good thing we're so far away from the other cabins. No one'll ever know about it."

"I think you mean _suspicious_ that we're so far away from the other cabins," Carol thought Jennifer murmured, but when she clambered down to the ground she could see the tall girl already pulling off her pajamas, a simple black one piece on the bed.

By the time all four of them were ready, bathing suits on and towels in hand, Carol found that her spirits had lifted. She felt _included_ , the same way that she did when she was picked first for a side during Gym. And Janet hadn't even asked her just because she was the best at hitting or throwing a ball, she'd asked her because... And there, Carol was stuck. Why _had_ Janet asked her? Was she just being polite, since Carol was in her cabin? Or was it something to do with Carol's secret?

Jennifer was the only one of the four of them who'd thought to bring a torch, but the moon was quite bright and it wasn't difficult to see. They walked as silently as they could until the dirt path they were on curved downwards, towards the lake, at which point Jennifer asked in her quiet voice, "This is an annual camp the school does, right?"

"Sure," Janet replied. She was pulling slightly at the shoulder straps of her bikini, as if not quite convinced they were sitting in the right place. "Teaching us about leadership and unity and – stuff. Why?"

"I just don't remember anyone talking about it before."

"Perhaps they were trying to repress the memories," Namora said dryly.

"That's what I'm worried about."

"I'm not so sure about this swim," Janet said, apparently taking no notice of her friend. "The water looks _cold_."

"It looks beautiful," Namora contradicted her, and after dropping her towel and walking sedately along the nearby wooden jetty, executed a perfect swallow dive into the lake. That was too much like a challenge for Carol, who copied her. It _was_ cold, but refreshingly so, and when Carol came up for breath she smiled happily at the two girls who were still standing at the edge of the water.

"It's great," she called. "Honestly."

Janet dipped a foot in, made a face, and reluctantly waded into the water, Jennifer behind her. Carol, now treading water, turned to see Namora swimming swiftly away from her, parallel to the shore, with elegant freestyle strokes. When she slowed Carol called, "Hey, you're good!"

"Is that your professional opinion?" Namora drawled, and Carol felt her hackles rise, just a little.

"I _am_ the best on the school swim team," she said, and she didn't exactly mean to boast, because it was the truth, after all.  

"Well then, clearly you know what you are talking about." 

"Namora-" Janet began, but Namora was looking at Carol with interest and ignored the other girl. 

 "Would you like to race?" she asked. "We could swim to that buoy-" she gestured, and Carol squinted to see a floating orange ball maybe a hundred meters out.

“Guys I don't think-" Janet was saying, but Carol could never resist a race.

"Start at the jetty?" she suggested, and they both swam back over to it and pulled themselves out of the water. "Who'll start it?"

"Count me out." That was Jennifer, who was lying on her back, staring up at the stars.

 "Janet?" Namora asked, although from her it sounded a little bit more like a demand.

"Oh, al _right_." Grumbling, Janet came over to the jetty. "Are you ready? On your marks - get set -"

Carol was sure that she and Namora had hit the water at the same time, but by the time she surfaced she could already see the other girl had inched in front of her. Don't concentrate on her, she reminded herself. Concentrate on winning. But even though her arms were going like crazy - like _pistons,_ Steve would say - she could see that Namora was ahead of her, and gaining distance. By the time Carol rounded the buoy she must have been almost two full bodies in front.

The knowledge was there, like it always was. She could win - easily. She could _show_ Namora that she wasn't someone to be made fun of, not when it came to sports, not ever. But she knew where that kind of thing would lead, and it started with trouble and ended with her on the run from men in black suits. And that was absolutely not going to happen again.

She was panting heavily when she tagged the jetty to show that she'd finished. Namora wasn't even breathing hard.

"How did you -" Carol tried to ask, still half-gasping for breath. She thought that Namora would be looking smug, but in the moonlight she could have sworn that the other girl was looking at her with respect in her eyes. "You are good," Namora said, as though her praise was worth something. And after the way she'd swum, Carol suspected that it was.

"Did anyone hear that?" Jennifer had stopped floating while they were racing and was on the shore, toweling herself off. Janet, sitting on the jetty with her own towel over her shoulders, feet dangling in the water, cocked her head to the side.

"Voices!" she hissed. "Teachers! We better go." Carol and Namora both pulled themselves out of the water in a hurry. Carol was relieved that the other three seemed about as eager as she was to get into any kind of trouble.

They scurried back up the dirt path to their cabin. Jennifer's long legs got her there first, but instead of opening the door she stood outside, waiting for the others to arrive. “Don’t!” she whispered, when Carol went to open the door, reaching out a hand to grasp Carol’s shoulder and hold her back. “There’s someone in there!” Even as she spoke there was the sound of a thud from inside.

 Carol shook off the hand. Maybe it was just one of their classmates, goofing around, but she had a feeling that this was more than that. After all, it wasn’t the first time recently she’d had someone going through her things, and – yeah, maybe she was just paranoid because Janet, at least, knew her secret, but she still wanted to know who thought it would be a good idea to sneak into her cabin. She turned the handle. The door swung inwards, and she stepped inside, conscious that Janet and Namora were right behind her. She reached for the light switch, flicked it on – and all four of the girls gasped.  

Inside the room was a _very_ large, black and white striped cat. The thud seemed to have come from it knocking over one of the bunk ladders, and it peered down at them from Carol’s bed.

“Omigod,” Janet breathed from just behind her. “It’s a tiger.”

“Tigers are orange,” Namora corrected her, voice barely audible, “and bigger.”

“A young white tiger, then. But that thing’s too big to be-”

“Shut up.” That was Jennifer, her voice just a little bit too loud. “You’re going to make it-”

The tiger leapt. Instinctively, so did Carol, and found herself bobbing next to the ceiling. She instantly looked down to where the tiger had landed. Jennifer, still outside when it sprang, had ducked behind the other side of the doorway. Namora, shockingly, was floating right next to Carol. “Well,” she said, one eyebrow raised. “This is interesting.”

“You-” Carol choked.

“I do not think this is the time.” Carol nodded, her eyes flicking back to the tiger. It did not have much room to maneuver, but watched the two of them hungrily from below.

“Janet?” Carol asked uncertainly.

“Here!” said Janet’s voice, and Carol’s head was by this time so confused with the strange situation she was in that she was not even able to register surprise that Janet Van Dyne appeared to have turned into a fairy. “Carol? Can you do anything besides fly? If we’re going to get the tiger out of here we’re going to need more firepower than just what Namora and I have.”

“I can pull my own weight in a fight,” Carol said, even now not wanting to give too much away. “Janet, we can’t just take it outside! What if it attacks other people?”

“Let us knock it out, first.” Namora sounded impatient. “Then we can decide its fate.”

“Then I’ll distract it,” Janet called, already swooping down towards the tiger on tiny wings. Carol hesitated, seeing Janet buzz around the tiger’s head like a wasp, and the tiger swiping a massive paw at her. But Janet was quick, zipping out of the tiger’s reach and then back in again.

Namora dove straight down, intent on hitting the tiger’s head. She struck, with a resounding smack, but instead of crumbling the tiger snarled and whirled, trying to see what had just hit it. Namora and Janet both darted away again.

“Of course it’s not just an ordinary tiger,” Janet said sourly. It was watching them now, as if calculating how to reach them; and it even managed to raise itself onto its hind legs, although that did not quite give it the reach it needed. It did, however, allow Carol to see what was around its neck. A thin cord, half disguised by the tiger’s fur, held a green pendant that was all too familiar to Carol.

“No way,” she said out loud, and then, once more copying Namora, dove down to the tiger, ignoring Janet’s cry of, “Wait!”

As quickly and as hard as she could, Carol grabbed the pendant and yanked. A huge paw smacked her in the side of the head, but the pendant came away, and even as she went sprawling into one of the cabin walls she saw that the tiger had gone, leaving an unconscious girl in blue polka dot pajamas in its place.

“Not just an ordinary tiger,” Jennifer repeated from the doorway. Her voice was shaking. “An animal that big doesn’t just rove the countryside with no one noticing it. But a girl could easily slip among us and be spying on us-” Her hands were balled into fists and she looked – _blurry_. Ill, maybe, like she was so angry she was going to throw up. But she looked _bigger_ , too-

“Jennifer, please. You know that now is not the time for a fight.” Jennifer looked at Namora wildly, like she was going to yell, or hit her; and then her breaths became less raggedly and her normal coloring came back into her cheeks.

“That’s Angela,” Carol croaked from the floor. Getting swiped by a tiger _hurt,_ even if she wouldn’t bruise or scar from the encounter. “Angela Del Toro. She’s in my kickboxing classes. She got sent this –” she held out the pendant, and Janet, now normal-sized and wingless, took it from her to examine “- for her birthday last week.” She’d been excited, telling everyone about it as they got changed after class. “She said she thought her uncle had sent it to her.”

“She is in my English class. Jennifer, I do not believe she is a spy.”

“But there’s _something_ going on,” Janet put in. “People don’t just turn into tigers and attack!”

“People don’t just turn into – tiny people! Or fly!” Carol said, raising her voice suddenly. “I don’t know why Angela turned into a tiger, or what it had to do with her necklace, but it’s not any stranger than anything else that’s going on!”

“Carol, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about me.” That was Janet. “You freaked out so much that day after school in the gym – and then I was so busy with the play that I didn’t have time. When I saw you were going to be in our cabin for camp I thought I could maybe break it to you gently…”

“But someone putting a tiger in our cabin forced your hand a little.” Jennifer seemed to have calmed down, and Carol glanced at her curiously. Jennifer had always just seemed so mousey. Now she wondered just what it was that mouseyness was hiding. “Maybe Angela didn’t have anything to do with – with anything else, but I think maybe we shouldn’t give her back that pendant just yet.”

On the floor, Angela stirred. Janet shifted so that the pendant was hidden behind her, and Carol went over to the former tiger. “Hey, Del Toro,” she said softly. Angela’s eyes fluttered open.

“Mnuh?”

“Next time you go sleep walking, maybe you want to stay in your own cabin,” Carol went on. Angela blinked a couple more times, and focused on the girl in front of her.

“Danvers?” She winced. “Sleep walking again? God, I’m sorry. That’s every night this week.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t end up in the lake,” Carol said, hoping that Angela was too out of it and embarrassed to notice that she and the others were wearing still damp bathing suits.

“No kidding. Um – I’d better get back to my cabin, I guess.” Angela stood up slowly and, ducking her head – she really was embarrassed, Carol realized – she slipped out of the door. The room’s four remaining occupants looked at each other.

“I think I’m ready to go to bed,” Jennifer said, and as if by general consensus all of them retrieved their pajamas and began to reorganize their belongings. No one else said anything for a while, but as Carol lifted the fallen ladder, Namora turned to her.

“Where did you get your powers?” she asked, as though it was an ordinary, every day kind of question. “They are similar to my own – but I would know if you were Atlantean.”

“Is that what you are?” Carol settled the ladder against the top bunk, wondering just what that meant. “I’m not – sure exactly. When I was a kid – before we moved here – there was this old army base near our house. It was meant to be abandoned – decommissioned, or whatever they call it. There was a hole in the fence and all the neighborhood kids used to sneak through and dare each other to enter the buildings. You know – just stupid stuff. Most kids would chicken out, but I never did. And one day we found an old aircraft hangar, and there was this weird plane there, kind of old-fashioned but _creepy_.” She shivered, remembering it. “So of course someone dared me to enter the plane.”

“And what happened?” They could have been discussing a basketball match for all the emotion Namora showed.

“I don’t remember,” Carol said. “The next thing I knew I was waking up, and everyone said I was in hospital but it wasn’t a hospital – and well, it’s a long story. But after that my family moved here. And I’d started to think that I’d left all that behind.”

“But lately, someone’s been watching you,” Namora suggested.

“I – yeah, how’d you know?”

“It is the same for all three of us.”

She fell silent again, and with some relief Carol climbed up the ladder, ready to sleep. Below her, Jen was already curled into a ball in her sleeping bag. Carol’s blankets were torn in several places, the only obvious sign that the tiger had been there earlier. With a sigh, she lowered herself onto the bed, closed her eyes, and tried to fall asleep. She had so many questions, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the answers to any of them.

***

"Hey, Carol!" Carol, holding her lunch tray in the school cafeteria, looked around to see that Janet was already seated at a table and was giving her a small wave. She hesitated, then went over to her and put her tray down on the table.

 "I usually sit over with the guys..." she said, and Janet grinned.

 "The basketball team? I know. And if you were to, say, casually mention to Jimmy Woo that Jen thinks he's totally amazing some time, and to not ever mention to her that I told you, that would be awesome. I just thought that maybe you'd like to hang out with us some times. Boys are OK, but..." she shrugged. "Don't you get bored with them sometimes?"

"Yeah," Carol said, and sat. And then - because why _not_ go for broke? - she added, "Actually, I need to pick up some new trainers this afternoon at the mall. Would you and the others want to come?"

“The mall?” Janet asked, and wrinkled her nose. Carol’s heart started to sink, and then Janet said, “Still, if I’m going to be redesigning your uniforms I’d better be up with the latest sportswear trends.”

“You are?”  

"Are you kidding? That track team jacket you were wearing at camp all last week was so nineties it hurt. Besides, there's probably some other stuff we should talk about."

That was putting it mildly. But while a week ago the thought of anyone finding out her secret had made her feel nervous and jumpy, now she sort of felt like – well, she was among friends. Girl friends, even.

And despite everything else, that was a pretty good feeling.


End file.
